CEBU, Philippines—If this judge is right, some couples are paying illegal “fixers” in court P1,500 to P6,000 to arrange a civil wedding, with much higher rates if a foreigner wants to get married.

The revelation was made yesterday by Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) Judge Donato Navarro of Branch 6 who said the "marriage coordination scam" was taking place in Cebu City.

He accused a fellow MTCC judge and some court personnel of conniving in the enterprise.



Navarro himself is the subject of an administrative complaint for neglect of duty filed by court staff of Branch 6.

He wouldn’t name the judge in the press conference yesterday. But in his position paper to the Supreme Court answering the administrative case, he asked for an investigation of the “wedding business” and identified the judge and one court stenographer who allegedly served as the fixer.

Cebu Daily News is withholding the name of the other judge till he issues a comment.

Judge Navarro pointed to stenographer Corazon Retuya as working with the suspect judge in running a "successful marriage coordination business."

Navarro alleged that Retuya ignored her duty to transcribe stenographic notes from 1996 because she was busy preparing marriage applications for civil weddings.

Retuya denied the charge and challenged the judge to produce evidence. She told reporters records would show if she wasn’t doing her job.

Judge Navarro said that instead of the official P300 marriage fee for a civil wedding, unscrupulous court personnel would collect P1,500 to P6,000.

He said he was told the amount would be higher from P15,000 to P100,000 if the parties to be wed involved a foreigner.

Navarro in his position paper to the Supreme Court attached a photocopy of a logbook which he said showed Retuya coordinated 408 marriages in eight months or an average of two marriages per day.

Navarro suggested to the High Tribunal that in order to stop the "illicit” activity, the executive judge of the MTCC should be required to coordinate or enter into a memorandum of agreement with the Local Civil Registrar that marriage contracts be furnished the court exclusively through the Office of the Clerk of Court.

"The undersigned believes that simply having the Local Civil Registrar release marriage contracts supplied to the Courts through only the Clerk of Court, to be released only upon payment of the P300 marriage fee, will do wonders in stopping this illicit business," Navarro wrote.

In a separate interview, MTCC Executive Judge Oscar Andrino through his staff said he was not aware of any "marriage coordination scam". He said he would bring the issue up in their meeting with fellow judges.

Navarro asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the administrative complaint filed against him saying it was “orchestrated” by a corrupt member of the judiciary.

In 2005, the Supreme Court ordered Navarro to resolve all pending cases in his sala. He was not allowed to preside over hearings while he was finishing decisions in more than 2,000 cases.

Yesterday, Navarro told reporters he finished the backlog. With this, he asked the Supreme Court to restore his administrative powers so he could directly supervise his staff in branch 6. Reporter Nilda Gallo